Mayor Ken McRae wants to meet with environmental leader Joe Foy and discuss his group's desire to ban old-growth logging.

According to McRae, if there were no old-growth logging there would be no Port Alberni, and he asked city council's permission to meet privately with the Western Canada Wilderness Committee leader to set him straight.

“A while ago the NDP was saying ‘ban raw log exports’ and ‘ban old growth logging’ which is really fuzzy wuzzy,” said McRae. “I don’t think [Foy] knows what he’s talking about, and we have to let him realize how important this is.”

McRae said the forest industry has to be cautious about continued harvest of old-growth trees on the West Coast, but said old-growth forests are by no means endangered.

Millworker and city Coun. Hira Chopra said local cedar mills would not exist without some old growth logging.